ATI-TV Wonder TV Tuner and
Video Capture Board
Last updated: 11/11/99
OPERATION. The ATI software and the seamless
integration of the ATI-TV Wonder with the MS NetMeeting and the Win 98 Web
TV applications really make this board. The impression is a well-engineered
hardware/software product.
 The
ATI video player, shown to the right, is multi-function user interface. The
Task Control Panel along the top of the player switches the player between
its various modes:
- Media Player - plays
MPEG and AVI video files.
- TV - controls and displays
live video from input devices plugged into the back of the card, such
as your Cable TV, VCR, and camcorder.
- Capture - Captures
still images.
The PAL version of the ATI-TV
Wonder (European, etc. TV standard) has an additional Teletext mode.
Each mode pops-up a different
control panel. These control panels have so many functions I cannot
begin to cover all them in this review. However, for example here's
a picture of the TV control panel showing some of AT-TV's capabilites:
I barrowed this diagram from the
ATI-TV board manual. It is identical except for a slight difference
in the appearance of the volume control.
You can do all sorts of things with the display. Change
the size of the window, expand it to full screen, zoom-in on part of
the picture designated with your mouse, etc. The list goes on. I
agree with ATI; the ATI-TV Wonder makes you computer into an "intelligent
TV set."
Functions not shown above include the display
of a matrix of thumbnail pictures of all of the channels which are being
scanned --somewhat like a video police scanner except you see little
pictures--and from which you pick the channel you want to see. The
Setup will autoscan the cable and automatically set-up all of the channels
on the cable--up to 125 of them. You can than rearrange them, set new
channel numbers, name them, lock-out channels and assign a password to them,
etc. You can even set-up the ATI-TV Wonder to detect words in the TV
closed caption text. This feature can be set so it maximizes the TV window/starts
saving a transcript of the text when it detects words matching your criteria;
however, screening capabilities are limited to rudimentary criteria.
The video capture panel allows you to grab
still frames, capture full motion video and sound, sequences of still frames
without audio, or just audio. Frames can be saved as clipboard files
and then pasted into most paint/photo programs. The rest can be saved
as AVI files for future playback/manipulation or for sending to friend as
an attachment to E-mail. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that
frames captured from a JVC GR-DVM5 Digital Video Camera/camcorder look
almost as good as the pictures taken with a Sony MVC-FD7 digital camera. (They
actually look better than the red car shown above, which was taken through
a window in my office, and resampled and optimized for the Internet.)
Finally, the ATI-TV Wonder fits almost seamlessly
with MicroSoft's NetMeeting. NetMeeting found the ATI-TV Wonder
waiting to be selected as the video source. NetMeeting converted the
ATI-TV Wonder, with a camcorder plugged into it, into an instant videoconference
camera, and with all the functions you would find from a dedicated videoconference
camera.
BOTTOM LINE. Although tarnished by a poor
software setup and instructions, this is a good board with a street price
under $100.00 and a 5-year limited warranty.
Larry
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